Avian Polyandry: Life-History Strategies in a Model System

9317988埃姆伦摘要这项研究最终关注的是了解女性和男性之间的行为差异，这是一种极其普遍的生物现象。进化理论和实验证据表明，在照顾后代上投入的时间和精力可能会强烈影响两性可用的选择。这种差异可能有利于男性和女性表现出不同的行为。在那些表现出父母照顾的动物物种中，雌性通常提供大部分这种照顾，让雄性自由地通过更多的交配来增加他们的生物学成功。在这样的条件下，自然选择可能会有利于两性不同策略的发展。这导致了一些假设，比如为什么两性在互动中经常扮演不同的角色，为什么配偶之间的行为冲突如此普遍，以及在这种冲突中可以期待什么形式的行为解决方案。这些想法可能会受到特别关键的考验，方法是研究那些照顾责任从“规范”颠倒过来的物种。埃姆伦博士正在研究这样一个物种的极端例子，在这种物种中，雄性照顾所有的后代，而雌性通过拥有多个雄性配偶来增加它们在生物学上的成功。这项研究将仔细记录男性和女性所采用的行为角色，以及表达不同角色的背景。这将增加对为什么特定形式的行为比另一种性别更受欢迎的科学理解，以及这种行为表达的进化作用。

9317988 Emlen ABSTRACT This research is ultimately concerned with understanding behavioral differences between females and males, an extremely widespread biological phenomenon. Evolutionary theory and experimental evidence suggest that the amount of time and energy invested in the care-taking of offspring may strongly influence the options available to each sex. Such differences may have favored the expression of different behaviors in males and females. Among those animal species that show parental care, females usually provide the bulk of such care, leaving males free to increase their biological success through additional matings. Under such conditions, natural selection might be expected to have favored the development of different strategies in the two sexes. This has led to hypotheses about why the sexes often adopt different roles during interactions, why behavioral conflict between mates is so common, and what forms of behavioral resolution can be expected in such conflicts. These ideas can be subjected to particularly critical test by studying species in which care-taking responsibilities are reversed from the "norm". Dr. Emlen is studying an extreme example of such a species, in which males look after all offspring care and females increase their biological success by having multiple male mates. This research will carefully document the behavioral roles adopted by males and females and the contexts in which different roles are expressed. This will increase scientific understanding of why particular forms of behavior are favored by one sex over the other, and of the evolutionary role of the expression of such behaviors.